Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to support the motion to disallow these regulations which underpin the Work Choices legislation which Labor vehemently opposes. It is indeed evil and pernicious legislation that will wreck the lives of millions of Australian families. It is the government’s blind ideology systematically destroying the rights and working conditions that generations of Australians have worked and fought for. It is un-Australian and it removes justice and fairness from the workplace.

Senator Murray was dead right in his contribution when he indicated that we have not seen the full effect of this legislation as yet. It will be something that develops over time, but we can certainly see the indicators now. And throughout the Work Choices inquiry we were able to point to examples where similar legislation has in fact been put in place—certainly in Victoria and Western Australia—and we actually saw the race to the bottom happen. We actually saw that—it was presented to the committee in evidence—so it is no surprise to us that already the indicators, only a number of months after the legislation came into force, show that the wages and conditions of working Australians are being stripped away.

Again, Senator Murray was right—we are talking about thousands of workers at this point in time, but we will see hundreds of thousands and millions of workers lose wages and conditions because of this ideological, extreme legislation which this government is putting in place. Labor said during the debate on the Work Choices legislation that this legislation and these regulations will lead to a race to the bottom for the Australian worker. These laws will slowly and insidiously eat away at the family lives and aspirations of millions of Australian workers.

We were not the only ones to say so. The Democrats said so—in fact all parties, apart from the government parties, said so in this chamber. One hundred and fifty-one leading academics in the field of workplace relations also said so. In fact, during the Work Choices inquiry not a single person or organisation apart from employers and employer associations supported this legislation—no-one else. Every other submission opposed the legislation and told us that this will lead to an imbalance in the power relationship in the workplace that will tip that balance, those scales, so far to the power of employers that workers will have no choice but to accept what is put in front to them, or simply not have the opportunity to take a job.

It was not only 151 academics and the Labor Party and the minor parties in this place that said these things—these points were also made by the President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission Mr Geoffrey Guidice. I probably need to put on record for the Senate that he is in fact an appointee of this government. When speaking at the AMMA national conference on 16 March, Justice Guidice said that the new Fair Pay Commission would undoubtedly slow the rate of growth of minimum wages and that, combined with other income-cutting elements of the new Work Choices, would lead to pressure to cut welfare payments so that incentives to work were not reduced as the rate of wage growth subsided. To quote Justice Guidice specifically, he said:

I think one of the most important issues involved with Work Choices is the reduction of the safety net for the purpose of the no disadvantage test for collective and individual agreements.

That could have a significant effect on incomes of the lowest paid in our community.

I can assure you it’s going to affect our society.

People with low skill levels, low bargaining power, are heading for the Fair Pay and Conditions Standard, which will have an effect on their incomes.

This will be accompanied by a slowdown in the rate of growth of minimum wages—that’s what the Fair Pay Commission is for.

Debate interrupted.